by Don Prichard
“Stubborn—simple as that. She and I hit heads the minute our feet touched the island. How long was it, half a year before we could speak civilly to each other? By then our world consisted of surviving from one day until the next. Life before the island wasn’t an issue anyone thought about.”
His last night with Eve flashed through his mind. They were sitting close to the hearth fire in the cave, his arm around Eve. She was shivering, snuggling tight against his side, quelled by the memory of the python that only hours before had wrapped her in its coils. Her skin was faintly moist with perspiration. He sat with eyes half closed, conscious of his fingertips touching the satin of her skin, of his cheek pressed against her hair. Betty and Crystal sat nearby, Betty beaming like the harbor moon outside, Crystal chattering about their plans. When they got rescued, she declared, Jake and Eve would marry; they would adopt her; and Aunt Betty would move in with them.
“Jake?”
“Sorry, Betty. I just remembered, Eve told me our last night together that she would tell me everything she’d been holding back. I couldn’t ask her that night. Not after the snake. We were going to talk the next morning.”
Betty’s sigh rasped through the telephone. No doubt she was thinking about that next morning on the island. The morning their rescuers arrived—pirates—to destroy them.
“What do we do now? Mack said we should go to the Everett Dirksen Courthouse to meet Eve, or see if they’d give us her address.”
“I’ll get a flight out tomorrow and meet you in Chicago.”
A chorus of wails erupted behind him. “We’ve got plans for tomorrow, Jake. You can’t leave. Marc and Samantha are driving up with the kids. You can wait until Sunday.”
His sisters herded him against the wall, hands on ample hips, glaring eyes pinning his against the back of his skull. Pure intimidation. The trick had worked until he turned thirteen.
“Jake,” Betty shouted. She must have heard the commotion. “I already checked with the airlines. Everything’s full tomorrow, and government offices are closed on the weekend. There’s a flight available Monday—I can meet you then.”
“Monday is good.” Jake glared at his sisters. They backed off, smiled prettily, and returned to making sandwiches. The United States could have won the war in Nam with monsters like them.
“Eve may still have amnesia,” Betty said. “What if I send a special delivery letter and tell her we’re coming?”
“Good idea. I think she’d jump at getting a piece of the puzzle to help her memory. Please, do it.” They hung up, and he checked his ticket. His current flight to Indianapolis left Denver at three-thirty on Sunday, with a two-hour layover in Chicago. He’d get a hotel in Chicago instead of continuing to Indy. Monday morning would find him at the Everett Dirksen Courthouse, seven o’clock sharp.
Question was, how do you approach the woman you love when she has no idea who you are?
Chapter 18
Danny Romero had four sons, and one of them he loved.
The secret trembled in the left trouser pocket of his heart—a secret he’d sorrowfully laid to rest a year ago with the news of his son’s death. His son, who might be alive after all! He couldn’t help the hope clasped to his bosom. Couldn’t help dropping everything to find his beloved Emilio.
He trudged down Roosevelt Road, snarling under his breath at the Friday night revelers who dared jostle Chicago’s premiere drug lord. They were lucky his mission required avoiding attention. A phone booth, its glass smeared with bird droppings and the grime of city living, stood empty halfway down the block. Romero stopped outside it and checked his watch. Behind him, his bodyguard, first cousin to Darth Vader without a facemask, diverted pedestrians simply by glaring at them.
The phone rang, and Romero stepped inside and closed the door. Just him and the stench of urine and five kamikaze flies inside. Outside, his bodyguard stood alert, certainly not looking curious about why his boss who could barely breathe fresh air would shut himself inside a nasty phone booth without the door cracked.
On the phone’s second jangle, Romero lifted the receiver to his ear. He looked at his watch again. Second-hand on thirteen. If the caller’s phone were tapped, Romero would be finished with the call and strolling down Roosevelt before the call could be traced.
“One-Bee,” a voice said.
Romero gripped the receiver and squeezed it as if it were One-Bee’s neck. “I’m in this filthy box because of you.”
The time span of a hard swallow passed. Then, in a monotone, “U.S. State Department reported two of the American castaways are duds; the third, a looney.”
Romero slumped against the grungy wall of the booth. Why had he hoped to find anyone besides Eriksson to help locate his son? He should have known better. Hope relied on people; success relied on clout.
His bodyguard peered through the smudges on the door. Romero straightened and waved him away. “Looney how?”
“Nam veteran. Henshaw thinks he’s one of your men.”
Romero sniggered. The hotshot district attorney had duped himself this time. “What about Eriksson?”
“No changes.”
“There’s a slab waiting in the morgue if you can’t bring me anything better than that.”
“I told you she’s going to Ace’s Gym every morning.”
“I can’t touch Eriksson now, thanks to that wiretap. They’d finger me the minute anything happened to her.”
Fifteen seconds left. He grabbed his pen and tore off a piece of the booth’s soiled phone book cover. “Give me the Looney’s name and telephone number.”
He stuffed the information into his pocket, slammed the phone down, and yanked the glass door open. One-Bee lived only because a mole inside the Justice Department was allowed nine lives.
“Take me to Sylvia’s,” he barked. His bodyguard signaled Romero’s chauffeur parked down the street, and the black Cadillac pulled up. Romero climbed inside and sank into the padded black leather of the back seat.
His wife would call him a fool for trusting a novice like One-Bee to keep him on top of something important like a phone tap. But Rosa didn’t know about One-Bee’s phone calls. Rosa of all people must never know. Three of his four sons were Rosa’s. The three he didn’t love.
Just like he’d never loved Rosa.
The Cadillac stopped, and Romero got out. The diners at Sylvia’s Restaurant filled every table stuffed along the sidewalk behind the waist-high, wrought iron fence. A waiter spied him, and by the time Romero walked through the restaurant to the outdoor area, a potted plant had been swept aside and a table and chair set up for him, complete with tablecloth, silverware and glassware. The diners paused, forks in midair, to watch the big shot stroll to the table as if he were the owner of the restaurant.
The manager, a portly man with ruddy cheeks and a brown cowlick spilling onto his left temple, stepped up to the table. “Signore Romero. Welcome.” His English accent butchered signore.
Romero grunted and placed his order. Archie didn’t like him. Didn’t like his coming to the restaurant. Didn’t like having to wait on him. Romero’s lips twitched a flicker of a smile. The Brit’s dislike doubled Romero’s pleasure.
But Martha—la cara, his dear one—was why he came, why he kept coming. Only here at Sylvia’s was his heart free to talk to the woman he loved. He sat back and prepared for his rendezvous with her, letting his tension drain cell by cell, muscle by muscle, until all his concerns lay in a pool under his feet and evaporated away. All his concerns but one. Their son.
Most men remembered their first love the way she had looked on the day they met. Romero remembered Martha Bennett not only from when she was eighteen and he, twenty-five, but from when he found her again six years after she’d fled. A memory he refreshed every year after that when they met for one stolen week, sometimes two, in a Swiss chalet or a villa on the Riviera or a castle on a fiord.
He should have made her marry him. But at eighteen she’d shaken like a leaf in the wind
when she discovered his parents topped the list of crime families in Chicago. She ran away, hid in England with family he didn’t know existed—until they came seeking his help. That’s when he’d found out he and la cara had a son.
Archie loomed into Romero’s peripheral vision, carrying a tray. He set a plate of bangers and mash in front of him. His English cara’s favorite. The rich smell of freshly ground sausage and fried onions simmered for hours in ale filled Romero’s nostrils. He cut a slice off the sausage and scooped mashed potatoes and sauce onto his fork.
La cara had named their son Miles Bennett, with the middle name of Romero. Miles had changed his name to Emilio Romero after she died and he went to work for his father. She wouldn’t have liked Emilio’s slide into crime. But Romero had seen it coming, had simply waited. The boy was a natural. Outshone Romero’s other three sons like a supernova.
“Coffee?” Archie asked. He brought an espresso at Romero’s nod and didn’t attempt to hide a cheeky smile when Romero dismissed him with the paid bill and an oversized tip.
Romero watched the manager’s eager retreat. Their relationship was a two-way street, and Romero took care not to push Archie too far. Archie Bennett needed Romero to protect the restaurant, and Romero needed Archie, Martha’s nephew, as the only tangible link to la cara’s family.
La cara. She was dead, and he didn’t believe in life after death or spirits conjured from the grave. He wasn’t a tottering fool like Vito down the street, who muttered nonsense to his dead wife all day long. No, la cara lived only in Romero’s memory, but he knew what she would want him to do. Everything possible to find their son.
He left the restaurant and returned to Roosevelt Road. At the first phone booth he encountered he got out of the car, dropped coins into the slot, and dialed the number of the Looney.
The phone rang five times before a man answered. “Jake Chalmers—”
“What do you know about the sinking of the Gateway?” Romero growled.
“Leave your name and number, a short message if you’d like, and I’ll get back to you.”
An answering machine. Romero hung up. He slammed the metal wall of the booth with his fist.
He exited, and in a flash the perfect plan came to him. Sicuro! Of course! Chortling, he re-entered the telephone booth. This time he left the door open while he fished for coins in his pocket. He dialed and waited through Chalmers’ message, then counted as his watch’s second-hand ticked off the length of the empty tape. Using the scrap of paper he’d scribbled Chalmers’ phone number on, he recorded the number of seconds.
Bravo! He stepped outside, his footsteps light enough to dance on clouds. Henshaw’s wiretap had thwarted Eriksson’s abduction; now Romero would flip the trap and foil Henshaw.
The Nam looney was the perfect bait. What he wouldn’t give to be with Henshaw when the fool swallowed it.
Chapter 19
Brad Henshaw recognized the name on the return address. Betty Parker. He cussed a stream of invective—safe enough since Saturday insured no one else was in the District Attorney’s office. Only after he ripped open the Special Delivery envelope did he realize the letter was intended for Eve. He read it anyway.
Friday, July 9, 1982
Dearest Eve,
I’ve been told you have amnesia as a result of your head injury, so it may be that you won’t recognize my name, Betty Parker. You and I and Jake Chalmers and my grandniece Crystal Oakleigh were stranded for a year on a remote Philippine island until our rescue four weeks ago. You were there with us, dearest Eve, but you disappeared from the hospital in Manila, and we were at a loss to find you until Jake and I hired a private investigator.
Now that we know you work at the Everett Dirksen Courthouse (and as a federal prosecuting attorney—how impressive is that?), we would like to come to Chicago to visit you. Jake and I will be there on Monday, July 12. Our hope is that we can help you overcome some of your amnesia when we talk to you.
And most of all, we can hardly wait to see you again, dear friend!
Betty
Brad drummed his fingers on the desktop. Should he give the letter to Eve? Sit in on the visit? Marianne had told him about Eve’s nightmare and Eve’s agreement that Romero’s men must have held her captive on the island.
He opened the dossier on Jacob Chalmers that Orville Marsh from the U.S. State Department had sent with his report. Inside was a headshot of Chalmers. Two jagged scars clearly marked his right cheek. Almost exactly as Marianne had described the monster of Eve’s nightmare. A monster further matched to the scarred veteran Orville Marsh detailed in his interview of Chalmers.
Groaning, he cranked back his shoulders to loosen the knots creeping up his neck toward a full-blown headache. Eve was already set to desert the Justice Department because of Romero. Why traumatize her and give the rabbit further cause to flee the wolf? But Chalmers was a decorated hero, recently promoted to full colonel. He couldn’t discredit Chalmers on the basis of an amnesiac’s nightmare.
He punched in numbers on the telephone keypad. Perhaps an update on Romero’s wiretap would tip the scales one way or another.
It did. Big time.
A direct communication from Danny Romero’s office to Jacob Chalmer’ tape recorder: Kill her.
***
Jake could easily imagine workhorse Eve starting her workday early. He couldn’t sleep anyway, so why not arrive at the Dirksen Federal Building before the first government employees started crowding in? His heart was hammering so fast he’d skipped the morning caffeine. Breakfast too—no good with a stomach full of wasps. One minute his feet floated on clouds, the next minute they mired in quicksand.
Betty insisted he not meet her plane but wait for her at the Dirksen building. He stared up at the 30-story glass and steel high-rise shadowed in the parasol of the morning sun. One of Mies van der Rohe’s contemporary beauties. “Skin and bones” architecture, the man had dubbed his creations; “less is more.” Jake had done little design work as an architect, choosing instead to focus on construction. But gazing up at the building’s simplicity and beauty reminded him of his longing to try his own creative powers someday.
Almost in the blink of an eye, as if arriving through a magic portal, traffic jammed the streets and pedestrians bumped shoulders on the sidewalks. Jake stationed himself outside the double glass doors of the building to spot Eve, trying not to look like he was ogling every blonde beauty who paraded into the building in a tight skirt and high heels. The self-conscious flush heating his face didn’t help, nor the tremulous breaths his heart was shoving out his lungs.
He stuffed his hands into his pockets to hide their silly shaking and sweating, but he couldn’t hide his smile. He was going to see Eve!
A rap on his leg diverted his attention. Betty stood in front of him, cane in hand, grinning. Gone was the gaunt, straggly-haired, little old woman he’d known on the island. In her place was an elegant, silver-haired matron leaning on an intricately carved ebony cane.
“Betty?” Then, “Betty!” He grabbed her into his embrace, lifting her off her feet, laughing in pure joy.
“Jake, put me down before you crush every bone in my body!” Laughter accompanied the admonishment. Settled onto her feet again, she reached up and grazed his face with her fingertips. “Look at you, all shaved and handsome. If Eve doesn’t remember you, she’ll certainly want to make your acquaintance.”
Grinning, they entered the lobby and sat where they could observe everyone who passed. Jake thought of at least a dozen possible things to say to Eve if she didn’t recognize him. And discarded them all. No, if Eve didn’t remember him, it made more sense for Betty to take the lead. Less intimidating for Eve’s sake to be approached by a woman, plus Betty had paved the way with her special delivery letter.
The crowd didn’t thin for a good half hour, and even then Jake was reluctant to give up for another half hour. Finally Betty spoke, the corners of her mouth drawn down. “Jake, if Eve still has amnesia, would she have
any reason to come to work?”
His cheek twitched. His shoulders sagged. His buzz of anticipation crashed. So, he’d ended up with his feet in quicksand. “Okay then, we’ll go ask for her address.”
He’d already looked up which floor the U.S. District Attorney’s office was on. He helped Betty to her feet and trudged at a snail’s pace alongside her tapping cane to the bank of elevators around the corner.
The lift hummed tunelessly during their ride. They were alone, and Betty slid her hand into his with a tight grip. Tenderness tweaked tears into his eyes. He remembered the time on the island when he’d been at his lowest and Betty had sandwiched his big hand between her two small ones. “God doesn’t abandon His loved ones,” she’d said. He curled his fingers around her tiny hand now and squeezed gently. His chest glowed with warmth.
The elevator doors opened with a soft hiss. They padded through the hallways, Betty suddenly chatty, cane thumping. “I thought about bringing Crystal. She’d love to see where Eve works. I didn’t want Neal and Clara to know where I was going, though. Crystal and I are miserable living with them. We can’t wait until we come live with you.”
Cane and chatter came to a halt outside the glass doors to the U.S. District Attorney’s office. Neither Jake nor Betty moved. Couldn’t move. On this side of the door, hope held their hands. On the other side, a monster could be waiting, their dreams already in its stomach.
“Eve might be in there,” Betty whispered. “She could have slipped by us. Or come in another way.”
Only two people were visible in the office. A middle-aged woman with a pug nose, sitting at what must be the receptionist’s desk, and a man in a suit and tie, standing idly across the room. A big dude. In a barroom he would have been the bouncer. The hair on the back of Jake’s neck pricked to attention.
The man saw them, strode across the room, plucked open the door.
“Thank you.” Betty, chin in a regal lift, swaggered in. Jake followed, gave the man a nod, received a blank stare.
